Category Archives: Medical Marijuana

For years now there has been concerns over the state of the manufacturing industry and if it will ever reach the previous pre-recession highs. The automotive, aerospace, and building/construction industries among others have only recently begun to improve. One industry with untapped growth potential is the medical and recreational marijuana industries. As state governments change their laws regarding the legality of marijuana in their state, a whole new production industry is starting from scratch to meet the demand.

Why the Marijuana Industry is Growing

Until fairly recently marijuana was illegal under both state and federal law. This has changed with Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington making the use of both recreational and medicinal marijuana completely legal. Many additional states including almost all in the northeast and the southwest have changed their laws to make marijuana for medical purposes legal. Numerous additional states have legislation under review and up for vote to determine if the status will change.

The Marijuana Industry Creates Jobs

With the status of marijuana changing in states all across the country, the infrastructure for marijuana production must be created from scratch. A study from the Las Vegas based RCG Economics group concluded that legalizing recreational marijuana would add more than 6,200 jobs in the first four years in the state of Nevada. This would also create millions of tax dollars and would create nearly 3,000 jobs in related industries like security firms, attorneys and transportation companies. In Connecticut the use of medical marijuana is growing with over 500 physicians currently registered to recommend treatment up from 81 in September 2014. Miami-Dade county has recently investigated the effects of medical marijuana production and has estimated that 125 direct jobs, 75 indirect jobs, and 102 construction related jobs could be created with an annual impact of nearly $62 million, a figure that would grow in the next 10 years. With these kinds of economic numbers, it’s clear that more cities and states will be looking to bring production of medical marijuana locally in an effort to generate revenue and create jobs.

At Cheever we understand this is a new industry that is rapidly growing. In our previous blog Who Put Paper in My Marijuana? we have explored the benefits of specialty paper in the process of extracting marijuana for the oils. As a specialty paper supplier we work with growers, medical labs and production facilities to help them find the correct parchment paper, the correct size paper, and to educate them about printing on certain materials, and what oils work best with what paper. For more information on how we can assist please contact us.

That’s right folks, Specialty Paper is showing up in the Medical Marijuana space. Now of course not literally but Specialty Papers like Parchment, Glassine, PTFE are all being used in this new Medical Marijuana market.

Is It For Real

I don’t think there is a soul out there that is reading this blog posting that has not seen or heard of the Marijuana market space taking off. The adult usage in regards to market sales in 2014 was $373,800,000 and then in 2015 in grew by 232% to $1,241,400,00. This is the fastest growing market area to date according to Leafly.com

Where Does Specialty Paper Fit In

I’m going to leave the actual marijuana 101 out of this article, there are tremendous sites out there that are incredible about explaining marijuana. I highly recommend Leafly (www.leafly.com). Just take a quick look and you will quickly realize this is not a “burn-out”, hippie, throwback hang out, and there are several other sites.

It is all about the process of extracting marijuana for the oils. It is in this process that a Specialty Paper is used. Growers will take the buds, heat and compress them causing a sap like oil (hash oil sometime it is known as) to be forced out. But before this happens, they put a 6” x 6” square of Silicone Coated Parchment paper down, so when the oil starts oozing out, it can easily be scrapped and removed. (For the avid marijuana growers, please exclude the crudeness in the simplified explanation, we are targeting the Specialty Paper suppliers here – please don’t take offense).

Several Sizes Needed

There are several sizes that are used for this, anywhere from 4” x 4” to 12” x 12” squares. Some folks are needing printing/branding, some need shapes similar to ring boxes, others need some type of folding pattern. The most common request we see is for Silicone coated parchment. This is your typical baking sheet that you would bake with. For the small mom and pop growers, Costco and Bj’s have been filling their needs. Also keep in mind, there is Quilon coated parchment, which has been around since the dawn of time. Of recent it has received a bad rap due to the Chromium that is inherent in the parchment made with this due to the Quilon coating. Before you think bad, just think, every cupcake you ate when you were a kid, was baked with a Quilon coated paper cupcake holder, and you are still here today reading this silly blog – go figure.

Also used is Glassine paper. A very smooth paper that has a barrier resistance, not as good as parchment, but can work in certain applications. But for true total 100% greaseproof, waterproof, barrier proof, and extremely resistant to all chemicals it would be Teflon coated paper, known as PTFE. The drawback, it is the most expensive of the papers listed.

Markets Served

The Paper industry is just one industry that is benefiting from this growing market. Medical and biological labs have transformed into extracting marijuana due to already having a lot of the gear and process in house. The equipment to make extractions has revised several manufactures that were selling into the fragrance markets that were hunted down by marijuana expertise to “tweak” their machine’s for extracting the oil. Farming – sort of no explanation needed here. Just look at the areas in Colorado and Washington that were barren and is now being transformed into a rich paradise for growing.

Mircosoft is even in on the game – that’s right. They are helping to write software that will monitor the growth of the plants and help monitor the whole process. Think about this, Microsoft is putting energy into the Marijuana space. Heck even Whoopie Goldberg has her own company around a certain strain of marijuana.

Conclusion for the Paper Industry

So you get the point, this is not a fad, it’s not going away, you will see all 50 states in your life time be medical marijuana enabled – there I said, I will get off my pot box.

For Specialty Paper suppliers like myself, these are very, very exciting times. We have already been dealing with several small growers, several medical labs, marketing specific companies and publicly traded companies with their only mission is around medical marijuana. We have been helping companies find the correct parchment or correct size, as well as work on educating them about printing on certain materials, and what oils work best with what paper.

We have also in the last month partnered with a local mill in using their parchment like paper to create a very unique offering. This is Nano cellulose fibers, using Nano technology to align these fibers which makes a barrier resistant parchment like paper. Then we coat with Silicone both sides, creating a truly unique Specialty Paper. In our next posting will dive into this and the Nano craze taking hold in some areas of the Paper Market space. Please visit us at www.cheeverspecialty.com or shoot me an email, would love to answer any question etc. – jeff.e@cheeverspecialty.com